Okkervil River, the Band

Okkervil River were in full form for this last tour--at least, they were in the fullest form I've yet to see. OR felt like a real band that night, a full band, but they almost didn't feel like Okkervil River; it was almost as if it were: The Will Sheff Band plays most of their new debut album, and throws in a few OR covers...you know, Will's former band. All of the above is mostly a good thing--new, unfamiliar, but good. I suppose this is somewhat an assessment of the new album, by virtue of the fact that OR's sound and dynamic has changed.

I noticed more than a couple familiar band members from their last tour with Levon Helm, over a year ago, (we all know Sheff's lineup is subject to change) but there was one in particular who stuck out: Patrick Pestorius. Pat's been in the band since the Black Sheep Boy days, but mostly as a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. On this night, he was up, front and center, next to Sheff, with his own mic and even his own singing parts. For once, there was a prominent presence in the band other than Sheff--someone to fully partner up with. I'm willing to say he is the strongest secondary personality in the band since keyboardist Jonathan Meiburg left in the mid 2000's.

Overall, the show was very good. The band played many songs from the new album, I Am Very Far, a few cuts from The Stage Names, and, surprisingly, nearly half of Black Sheep Boy, including the magnificent 8-minute-plus "So Come Back, I am Waiting." All of the songs were rocked-up, even "A Girl in Port," perhaps to find some middle ground with the mixed fan base (hard-hitting show-stealers Titus Andronicus opened). Okkervil have always been grandiose, dating all the way back to "Westfall" (which, much to my chagrin, they did not play despite several shout-out requests), but there has always been a balanced mix of intimacy--something that, aside from the ever-changing lineup, really made OR Sheff's alias at the end of it all.

Now we have a full, unified band--they've been touring and recording together for a bit, but on this night they seemed established. This was a welcome change--however, the act suffered slightly from the lack of trademark intimacy (the only solo song Sheff played was "A Stone," which was beautiful, captivating, and probably the best part of the set). In the last 15 minutes of the short, hour-long set, Sheff announced that the venue was going to kick them offstage if they went more than 3 minutes over their cutoff time; he apologized and made a pact with the audience: "Let's say fuck the encore and just barrel through as many songs as we can, what do you say?" It was remarkable. With an almost Olympic prowess, the band must've banged out at least 4 songs...back-to-back-to-back, etc, without pause. As I walked out of the venue, I still carried a semblance of an esoteric connection with the band and its music, and that was satisfying enough for me.

The Antlers Want Your Heart to Burst Apart

Frenchkiss has always been a pretty reliable little label, one of those places I go to knowing I'll be satisfied with whatever I get--the local deli that loads all kinds of good shit on a giant roll and it's always good. They've been the home to aggressive indie stalwarts, Les Savy Fav, for some years now; they helped to bolster the ever-catchy Passion Pit. So, after a couple of years of hearing the name, The Antlers, being thrown around the various indie-blog standbys and ascribing them to the realm of fungible "it-bands," I decided to give them a shot once the Frenchkiss kiss-of-life was placed on their collective baby-soft cheek. Needless to say, I'm pleased with the result of my recent venture.



Burst Apart is the passionate new album from the Brooklyn now-trio. Released just a week ago, the album is an emotional onslaught of gooey synths, spindly guitars, and effeminate vocals provided by frontman Peter Silberman (and here I thought Britt Daniel had a deceiving range). The fluctuation of falsetto to impassioned croon gives the band quite the palate to work off of. This discrepancy is most evident at the close of the album in the shift from "Corsicana" to "Putting the Dog to Sleep," the final two tracks of Burst.

In the beautiful "Corsicana," the slow strum of clean guitars and the atmospheric air provide a backdrop to the light and extended "ooh"s that Silberman brings to the table. As he describes two people trapped in a slowly burning room, the narrator closes by imploring the other, "We should hold our breaths with mouths together now," and you almost want to stay in the room alongside them to watch the tragic, yet beautiful fire slowly consume whatever is left. In the segue from one song to the other, you can hear the wind blow through that very same room and lead us to the soul-filled soundscape of "Putting the Dog to Sleep;" it feels like a modern-day "Under the Sea" slowdance at prom, but without laying on the cheese. With what could be the same two people from the previous song, our narrator wants to clear the air with the other before the smoke overtakes them: "Don't lie to me.../Put your trust in me/I'm not gonna die alone," he assures them. While this could easily be construed as melodrama, the urgency in his voice is too earnest to not take seriously. So, when it comes to Burst Apart, take note--seriously.

Me an Bobby D

Any similarities?

A Real Man Can Admit When He's Wrong

Okay so here's the deal: I only slightly retract my former statement regarding Vampire Weekend. They still are overrated, but I will take out the "fucking" part of that statement just for good measure...and also because the album is sort of growing on me here. Maybe it's because the weather is changing--who knows..

Downloaded the new Tokyo Police Club album, Elephant Shell, off of the Saddle Creek website. It was only $9 and I got an instant download of 320kbps-quality mp3s. I also get an e-mail today with a link to download the bonus remixes. Both of these aren't out until the 22nd of this month of CD and LP but the download is available now. Pretty good stuff. This put me in sort of a twist here though.

[Skip This Paragraph If You Get Bored Easily]

I took a good 20 minutes deciding whether to buy the digital version of the album, or buy the LP. The LP is only $11 (that's $2 bucks more in case you suck at math) with shipping of course...but here's the catch: You still get a link to download the album instantly if you pre-order the LP or CD versions. You also get the remixes. So it's like, I'm paying a handful of singles more to have a tangible copy later, and a digital copy now, whereas with purchasing just the digital copy...I think you can figure the rest out. My final decision was to buy the digital copy as you can see, because this is TPC's debut album. They've had two previous EPs (only one of them is really proper though I guess) and I didn't want to gamble getting an LP I'll never listen to. It just seemed illogical...even if it is only a few bucks more. Oh well.

Check back for my upcoming post about bands with female vocalists and their new albums (aka reviewing the new Rilo Kiley and She & Him albums).

Listening Now: Vampire Weekend - "Campus"

"Modern World I'm Not Pleased to Meet You"

First of all, this pertains to all dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese, etc.).

This is backed from research by Harvard, NYU, and others.

Milk is said to be nutritious and good for bone health. After

we drink breast milk, we move on to cow's milk. However, the

only reason that a human female's milk is good for us is because

within the milk there are natural hormones which the mother

passes on to us. The same goes for cows, who pass on

hormones to their young via their milk. The nutrients, on the other

hand, cannot be passed across species. This means there

is little nutrition in dairy for us as humans, but plenty for calves.

With this in mind:

A company I have been researching since 10th grade, Monsanto,

is one of the giant Genetic Engineering companies. They are

the only company, because of a patent they have, that owns

BGH (Bovine Growth Hormone). This product brings them

$270,000,000 a year alone. BGH is injected into cows.

This enhances the hormones within cows and for reasons

of financial gain, milk has no labeling of BGH. On the flipside, all

they can do is label products as organic. By enhancing these

hormones, BGH causes the cows to produce 3x more milk then

they ought to. This reduces even more nutrition within the milk.

Not only this but:

Since the hormones are enhanced and are not from humans,

when we consume this milk and other dairy products that

contain BGH, we have hormones from another species within

our systems. The artificial hormones and antibiotics put into

cows contains carcinogens, just like cigarettes, that cause cancer.

But aside from all this, drinking milk that isn't organic is actually

bad for your immune system. Very bad. Your body recognises the

poison/herbicide (RoundUp, owned by Monsanto) that is sprayed onto the

grains and fields that cows chew up and process through their

milk, and BGH as foreign. The hormones you take in from the milk

confuse the natural hormones of your body and keep them from doing

their jobs. The immune system is weakend more and more

as one continues to drink milk. The effects are even more harmful for adults

over 40 years old.

Soy milk can be a good alternative, but

soy beans are one of the most Genetically Engineered products by

Monsanto. Even if they are not GE, they are sprayed by RoundUP which

contains carcinogens and toxins. Soy and Dairy must be organic to

avoid as much herbicide as possible.

Basically, the dairy industry is just another company that is seeking

financial gain through advertising campaigns that assosciate

drinking milk and consuming dairy with weight loss (which is now being

made illegal to advertise and found as false) and bone-health (there

are little nutrients, especially in non-organic milk that will bring

these results). There have been movements to make labeling

of BGH and other Genetic Modifications mandatory by law, but

they have all been snuffed out before they can become legislation.

It took long enough to have the Act passed that labels things as

organic or gluten-free. That is why everything recently seems to be

saying organic.

Anyway, I won't add the nasty details about the milk and all that

cause, whatever. But yeah I thought you guys would find this

interesting and also you can see why I care about getting organic

things (but especially milk). I don't go crazy buying this stuff, but

i get it when i can and i make a special effort for the milk.

Anyway, I could go into the Big farms getting priority in the market

over small farms, among other things, but this is all I feel like typing

right now and I'm sure its already been more than you can read.

What can I say, I was bored at work

and I heard a radio expose that peaked my interest

and jogged my memory.

And just to throw out some talk about music (since that what this
blog was created for):
My album of this week has been Battles - Mirrored
It is face-paced and blows you away. It can be too much
at times, but given the right state of mind (I've heard
it's best to drive to although I haven't experienced this yet)
it can be an awesome musical experience. The drums are
great and the production is apeshit. That said.

Listening Now: Wolf Parade - Modern World

The Radio Station and Zunes

So I got a Zune, courtesy of my roommate, Steve, who
had a change of heart and bought an iPod to replace his.
Now I have a Zune, and I must say, I've never had my own legit mp3 player (if you don't count my old Sony phone with a memory stick). Zune is good in my book. I enjoy the big album art. BIG TIMES.
Okay.

-Looks like I have no one to see Mountain Goats with at Webster Hall. Damn.
-Spring break starts for me this Friday.
-I really don't think anything special of The Rolling Stones but damn, "Gimme Shelter" is a fuckin bangin track. They also nailed it with "Ruby Tuesday" and "Under My Thumb" among few others.
-I hope they add last minute artists to the APW Fest, which I will speak of incessantly until it is out of my system (and it doesn't even start 'till August so brace yourselves).

Tonight I'm going to talk about The National. Damn I love them. Their music is so amazing and I can't get sick of Alligator or Boxer. My song of the week has been "Mr. November". It's one of those final tracks on an album that you don't fully recognise because you hear more of the first half of the album than the second. The song is apparently about the re-election of Bush and the pressures the band was feeling about completing Alligator. At a cursory glance, it just seems to tell a story of your typical high school football hero until he realises in his adult life that his concept of success has peaked and now he doesn't know who the fuck he is. Any single or combination of these meanings is fine with me because The National's lyrics kick you on your ass no matter what. "I won't fuck us over..." I love that line.

I found myself enjoying Nas' "One Mic" tonight....is that bad?

I joined the radio station (Brave New Radio - WPSC 88.7) two weeks ago. I'm now in the training process for the rest of the semester and then next fall I'll have my own show. They are going to be adding a whole nother studio, streaming online, going 24-7, and increasing their potential audience to a projection of like 2 mill or something (most of North Jersey). They're also putting on a fund-raising 10-hour event in the student center and ACTUALLY attempting to get bands to perform at Willy P that day. I should hope so! I'll be a part of that as well, in the planning and the execution.

Undeclared is a good supplement to Freaks & Geeks. I'm gonna watch another episode now I think.

Listening Now: Times New Viking - Teen Drama

Digital Delving

All kinds of busy lately.
I've realized that when I'm busy, granted I've gotten
enough sleep and haven't had too many cigarettes, I enjoy
myself more.
Anyway, in being so busy, I've discovered a niche for more
electronic and dance-based music in my tastes. Always liked
dance-rock, but I never got heavy into other stuff. For some
reason, I can't seem to get enough of

CSS
and especially
Hot Chip.

This week has been all about Hot Chip for me (I showered to that shit). To be honest, I didn't even have the new album, Made in the Dark, until last night because I was sweatin The Warning too much. Oh well. The new album is good--it just seems to be a little too clubby for me. Not that there's anything wrong with a good club banger every now and then, but from Hot Chip? not sure...

Also, I hit up Heretic Pride, the new Mountain Goats album, this week. Although it sort of got lost in the electro-shuffle this week, I can't fucking get enough of opener "Sax Rohmer #1". Other tracks that stuck out were "In the Craters on the Moon" and "Lovecraft in Brooklyn". But yeah, solid fuckn album, a step up from the previous Get Lonely, but I mean, come on, The Sunset Tree is a hard act to follow.

I'm off to watch Freaks & Geeks (I wish I could punch the guy who decided it should be canceled). Then, tomorrow I'm off to visit home and party it up for my birthday.

"Halt! This is D'ump."
peace.

PS: Vampire Weekend are fucking overrated. Also, I got a ticket to All Points West. This means I can see: Radiohead, Andrew Bird, Little Brother (I'll update more on this in the months to come you just wait). $106.50 is now missing from my bank account and that frightens me a bit. Not as much as seeing Radiohead though. I think I'll actually be scared.